Gleanings of the Week Ending July 25, 2020
/The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.
Native Americans Crossed the Pacific Long Before Europeans | The Scientist Magazine® - Using DNA to find more definitive answers.
Forest Surprise: A Wolf Story – West of Flagstaff ---- probably a Mexican grey wolf male…trying to find a new territory and exploring a restored forest appealing.
See Archaeological Treasures Unearthed by U.K. Residents During Lockdown | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The uptick in gardening and yard work leads to finding things in or on the ground…and then people having plenty of time to find out more about what the objects are. Something positive happening during the pandemic.
You Can Now Explore All 48,000 Panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt Online | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – I was glad to see this online version of the quilt is available – complete with search and zoom. I found the square for a person that I’d worked with in the 1970s and saw him at IBM sponsored conferences in the 1980s. Our early career crowd was scattered all over the country by the time he died in 1993.
Eleven Awesome Owls from Around the World – Good pictures and a short summary characterizing each bird.
Turmeric could have antiviral properties -- ScienceDaily – It’s already one of the supplements I take…as an anti-inflammatory. This study points to it being anti-viral as well.
Stain Solutions | U of I Extension – A good reference although in recent years the laundry detergents and cold water often get stains out.
Top 25 birds of the week: Wild Birds - Wild Bird Revolution – Enjoy the beautiful birds!
Solar Will Kick Most of Texas's Remaining Coal Fleet Offline – Good news for air quality in Texas. Evidently the growth of utility-scale PV production is rapid changing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market.
Infographic: How Breastfeeding Protects Mothers | The Scientist Magazine® - Research about the mechanism behind the observation that women that breastfeed their children have reduced long term risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Unique Activities for Yesterday:
Circular voids. I am starting a series of Zentangle tiles that have circular voids in otherwise dense tangles. I got the idea from some Mordecai Ardon paintings (slideshow on Internet Archive here) like Fatal Eclipse shown at the right. My first two tiles are below.
Compost bin. Between rain showers – I put on the boots I have for river field trips and got all my containers of kitchen scraps and spent flower stalks (mostly day lilies) out to the compost bin. It took 4 trips! There have been more things recently that produced more kitchen scraps than usual: fresh corn on the cob, cantaloupe, cabbage cores, and tough onion/leek tops. I’ve learned to save cucumber skins for use in smoothies so those get eaten these days and veggies like beets and carrots just get a thorough scrubbing rather than being peeled. I put all the new scraps on one side of the bin and then turned the other side over on top of it. I should deteriorate very rapidly.
Fresh flowers in the house. There are now small bouquets from the CSA cutting garden in my office and on the kitchen table. The one below is the one in my office. I like having flowers in my field of view! It’s a way I show kindness to myself.
